331 West 88th Street

331 West 88th Street

NB Number: NB 346-1894

Type:  Rowhouse

Architect:  Thom & Wilson

Developer/Owner/Builder: James Livingston

Row Configuration: AABCBCBAA

NYC Landmarks Designation:  Historic District

Landmark Designation Report: Riverside Drive- West End Historic District

National Register Designation: N/A

Primary Style:  Renaissance Revival

Primary Facade:   Limestone and tan roman brick

Stories: 3 and basement

Window Type/Material: One-over-one double-hung/Wood

Basement Type: Raised

Stoop Type: Straight

Structure: These nine three story rowhouses on raised basements are each twenty feet wide and faced in tan ironspot Roman brick above limestone basements and parlor stories. Designed for a unified appearance, the houses have a common roofline, a continuous stringcourse above the parlor stories, regularly aligned window heights, and decorative grilles at the basement stories. There are three different house types in the row, distinguished primarily by the second and third story oriel treatment and arranged in an alternating pattern that creates an AABCBCBAA rhythm. Each type is further defined by a variety of details including the number of fourth-story windows and ornamentation of oriel mullions. Some of the houses have been altered but it is apparent that all originally had similar facade materials, stoops leading to parlor-story entrances with wood and glass double doors, windows with one-over-one wood-framed double-hung sash, and identical pressed metal cornices with modillion blocks. The houses have various surface treatments at the basement and parlor stories, different ornately carved door surrounds, and decorative fascias below the roofline cornices.

The type “C” house (Nos. 331 and 335) has no projecting oriel. The windows of the second and third stories have a single two-story enframement containing a decorative spandrel panel. A straight stoop leads to the parlor-story entrance, located below a carved cherub in relief. To the west of the entrance is a slightly projecting two-window bay at the basement and parlor stories, faced in rusticated and coursed masonry and surmounted by a carved frieze and stone balustrade. There are three windows at the fourth story.

Historic District: Riverside Drive- West End HD

Alterations: The windows have white aluminum replacement sash. The entrance door and the parlor-story grille are not original.

History: This nine-house row was designed by Thom & Wilson for James Livingston, a builder/developer active in the construction of five rows in the district. They were built between April and December of 1894. Illustrated in contemporary publications, the row was described as finely detailed and architecturally pleasing. Selected References: “Examples of Modern Town House Architecture,” Real Estate Record & Guide 52 (Dec. 16, 1893), Supplement. Frank L. Fisher, The Beautiful West Side: A Complete List of West Side Dwellings (New York, c. 1895), 55. New York City Department of Taxes Photograph Collection, Municipal Archives and Record Collection, I 2450; E 1294; I 2450.24. New York Public Library, Photographic Views of New York City 1870’s-1970’s from the Collections of the New York Public Library (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1981), microfiche nos. 0618 El; 0618 E2.